


miles to go before i sleep

by stradlat



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Disbandment Fic, Travel Fic? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 22:03:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12466888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stradlat/pseuds/stradlat
Summary: “Let’s go on a trip,” Seunghyun proposes, buzzed on tequila and a semblance of something else he doesn’t quite remember the taste of, doesn't know if it's because it's been so long or because he'd never had it at all.But Seungri says, “Okay,” and that’s when things really start: right at the very end.





	miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is...more topri cheese and angst and dramatique pining? a glorified travel brochure to barcelona? you guys decide...
> 
> (there might be some sensitive topics discussed in this fic [background racism + homophobia +...sh in general], but i wasn't sure what to tag them as, so please do let me know which tags would be appropriate to use if ever)

 

 

 

 

They come back from the military, go on one last comeback hurrah— _the biggest of bangs_ , Seungri puns on their group chat, to which they all reply in fond camaraderie, _shut the fuck up_ —and then a month later, confirm their disbandment as official to the press.

“Let’s go on a trip,” Seunghyun proposes over the phone a month after that, buzzed on tequila and a semblance of something else he doesn’t quite remember the taste of, doesn't know if it's because it's been so long or because he'd never had it at all.

But Seungri says, “Okay,” and that’s when things really start: right at the very end.

 

 

✈

 

 

The drive to Gimpo is an exercise in anticipation, with a couple heady doses of anxiety injected to every thought that crosses his mind as the halogen lights of the Seoul highways speed past his window. It's way too early for a smoke, so Seunghyun taps his fingers restlessly against his thigh instead, hums a nonsensical tune below his breath that soon takes over the backseat sound system of the car.

He has Seungri to thank for that. Seunghyun had told him he'd wanted to go somewhere in Europe first—far enough away from home but not too far to feel the stark shift in timezones—and Seungri had his phone to his ear before Seunghyun could even finish his sentence, rambling off in a language Seunghyun hadn't recognized nor had been aware that Seungri had become fluent in as he'd walked away. The next day, Seunghyun had received a five-page email from Seungri of their flight itinerary and a list of recommended readings on Catalan tourism, which Seunghyun had skimmed over and retained next to nothing, and a few choice article clips on the country's current political climate, which Seunghyun had bookmarked on his phone to revisit for the plane ride this morning (if he doesn't get any sleep), or for the layover in Qatar later on (if he isn't able to find a designated smoking area, or sleep).

"It's an all expenses paid flight," Seungri had told him judiciously, when Seunghyun had called him to figure out the exact amount of credit he needed to e-Transfer to Seungri's account. "Don't worry about it, hyung. I got a friend of a friend to hook it up for us, so let's just call it quits."

"What, are you dating a Barcelona shareholder's daughter now? Lionel Messi's sister?" Seunghyun had drawled sarcastically, entering in $10,000 USD on the blank box anyway and clicking _Send_ without reviewing the price nor the terms and conditions of a secure transaction.

"As if Messi even has that much clout left with the sheikhs these days," Seungri had scoffed, not really giving the answer Seunghyun had been looking for, but he also hadn't asked the right question, so Seunghyun had just let it go. "Besides, I still have a year left on my contract with Cristiano, so until then, I'm not getting myself involved with the enemy." Then he'd hung up, but not before exclaiming into the receiver, loud enough to make Seunghyun, until now, doubt his ears' endurance for a high altitude travel, " _¡Hala Madrid!_ "

Which is ironic, of course, because Seungri's booked them a 5 a.m. flight, end destination Barcelona. Seunghyun's driver rolls up into the passenger drop-off lane and hits the brakes, steps out to help Seunghyun with his bags. Seunghyun dismisses him with a wave of his hand and a quiet but profound  _thank you_ , not wanting to attract any added attention from the surrounding crowd, but he doesn't seem to have much issue with that in the first place: no one turns to look at him, the few people milling about either too harried juggling identification documents on one hand and their luggage in the other, or too fogged up with the remnants of sleep to bother with scrutinizing Seunghyun's body proportions and comparing it with the recorded measurements on his fansite profile for a direct match.

Or, more simply, they just don't care. Four years is a long time to be inactive, to not release any buzzworthy side-projects, not even a six second feature on a labelmate's track. BIGBANG will always be BIGBANG, even in disbandment, its gravitational pull infinite and all-encompassing, but constellations burn out eventually, and Seunghyun's star feels like the most ancient of them all.

Still, he adjusts his mask, bows his head, tips his hat just that tiny bit lower. Better safe than sorry, and the sector of the general public—not to mention the legal system—that remained orthodox and tightfisted with their forgiveness still held the notion that he has a lot left to be sorry for already.

He gets himself through check-in and customs, sits down close to his boarding terminal, scrolls through his phone, waits. Someone sits on the seat to his immediate right, even with the rows and rows of chairs practically vacated in front of him, but Seunghyun doesn't register it as anything more than twilight fatigue until the person nudges him on the elbow and says, "Sorry to be a bother, but are you T.O.P from BIGBANG?"

Seunghyun's body tenses on reflex. His fingers curl tightly around his phone, ready to claw through a herd, but the next thing he hears is a laugh, and the sound is as familiar to him as the panic in his chest that's slowly starting to taper off. "Fuck off, I'm on vacation."

"Wow, asshole. All I wanted was an autograph," Seungri pouts, but he's giggling again within the next half-second, and Seunghyun feels his shoulders relax all the way. "Man, hyung, you should've seen your reaction. I really thought you were gonna deck me there for a second."

"And risk getting another lawsuit? You wish," Seunghyun says, pinches at Seungri's side now. "Not all of us want to be front page news on tabloids all the time."

"I'm more of a business section headliner now, excuse you," Seungri protests, slapping Seunghyun's hand away. He's gained a bit of weight over the last couple of months, always does at the tail end of any type of promotional cycle. Their latest conclusion had been permanent, so maybe there'd been more to gain. They all liked to tease him about it, and Seungri's always been the kind of person whose skin only gets thicker with age, but Seunghyun knows a little too much about the pervasiveness of that line of thinking, how it pricks and seeps in deep, settles in between like a second layer of fat and flesh. More to hate.

He pulls back, sets his fingers down on his lap. "Why Barcelona?"

"Why not Barcelona?" Seungri counters with a shrug, brings down his sunglasses from over his cap to shade over his eyes as they rightfully should. "It's just a starting point, anyways. We'll go to other cities right after, there's no rush."

Maybe for Seunghyun, there isn't, but Seungri's become even busier with his entrepreneurial ventures than he'd been before the disbandment, as if the group had been the final barrier to truly reaching his spoils. Not even Jiyong can grab a solid hold of his time nowadays, but Jiyong also knows how to cling onto things like a professional sport, so he has his ways of manipulating the time they did have to his advantage.

Seunghyun's just happy to take whatever he can, whenever he can. That's his version of gamesmanship: going with the flow. "The ball's in your court, CEO Lee. Just don't abandon me in the middle of nowhere with no WiFi or a Spanish-to-Korean dictionary."

"I'd at least leave you with the correct language to translate into," Seungri says, pulling the mask around his neck over his mouth as well, completing the disguise, so Seunghyun pulls his own down to avoid too much suspicion. There's going incognito to avoid media coverage and the most dedicated of sasaengs, but there's also the phenomenon of trying too hard to go under the radar that you end up standing out even more than you already did originally without the facade. "Did you even read anything that I sent you?"

"I read the wine tour brochure," Seunghyun proffers, not entirely a lie. A quick perusal of the pictures had been enough to get him salivating over the possibility of drinking good, home-bred  _cava_ , and that's all the tacit knowledge he'll ever require for this trip. "Can your friend of a friend hook us up for that, too?"

If Seungri rolls his eyes, Seunghyun doesn't get to see it behind the shield of Seungri's sunglasses, but he can definitely see the curve of his smile imprinting against the cotton of his mask. "I'll see what she can do."

Seunghyun's answering smile freezes halfway into formation. "So you _are_ dating Messi's sister?"

"Can you stop it with that? At least joke about something less far-fetched," Seungri laughs, so Seunghyun laughs, but it's still not the answer he wants. "She's already married, and she's not even my type."

There's a lot of different things he can say to that, like  _how do you even know this much about Messi?_ or _that's what you think makes it far-fetched?_ or  _trust me, you're not her type either_ or  _any woman with breasts and an ass and a functional breathing complex is your type_ , but the next announcement that blares through the speakers is a call for their plane to board, so Seunghyun doesn't get to test any of them out, doesn't get to evaluate how effective they'd be in letting him carry on with implementing the joke for that much longer. 

"That's us," Seungri says, standing up from his seat, offers Seunghyun another cloaked smile, along with a hand. "Ready to go on the adventure of your life, hyung?"

Seunghyun takes both, takes anything he can get. "Let's do this."

 

 

✈

 

 

Planes are routine, if not somewhat of a second home, just more aerodynamic and made of hunkier slabs of metal. Seunghyun feels like he's spent half of his life in one: reclining in his chair, headphones snug over his ears, listening to a new beat from Choice and trying to procure a verse that works into the bass, that Jiyong would be satisfied with; switching his overhead light on while everyone else turns theirs off, reading scripts, mumbling his character's lines to himself, over and over and over, until they're the only words that come out of his mouth in response when the flight attendant saunters towards him to ask if there was anything else she can help him with so that he can finally get some sleep; sleeping, a lot of sleeping, sleeping as if he's dead, waking up still feeling like he hadn't slept at all, drool drying on his chin and eye dew crusting in his tear ducts and his head leant against someone's shoulder; firstly Jiyong's, then Daesung's, sometimes Youngbae's, but more often, more recently, Seungri's.

That's not the case anymore. Sleep eludes him all the way from Seoul to Doha, just as it had last night, brain too wired and body too jacked on the adrenaline of potential. Excitement. Fear? Maybe wine. Probably the wine. Whatever it is, Seunghyun isn't really bothered; rest has never been easy to catch in their field of work, if it ever even existed at all, but Seunghyun's grown tired of the chase, of all the races. He can afford to take his time now. Isn't that what retirement's all about?

Seungri, on the other hand, gets right to it, just as he's always had. He's knocked out the minute the plane levels in the air, mouth hung open and eyeballs shifting erratically underneath the thin skin of his eyelids. Seunghyun wonders what he's dreaming about as he pulls out his phone to snap a couple of pictures of him—all at his worst angles, all unflattering—but Seungri opens his eyes before he can really guess, gaze wild and unhinged when Seunghyun meets it, and Seunghyun supposes that nightmares and dreams are one and the same. He should know.

"You gonna post any of that?" Seungri croaks, blinking rapidly before rubbing a knuckle over his eyes, as if trying to wash away the unwelcome images that'd been front and centre in the midst of his slumber. 

Seunghyun had been on the cusp of it, but he remembers where they're going, what they're doing. Who they are—who they  _were_ —and decides not to, because he knows a little more about recklessness, too, knows the repercussions that are handcuffed to it, the impossibility of escape. "I'm not."

"Good," Seungri nods, repositions in his chair, and then he's shutting his eyes again, murmuring a final, "I don't want it," and then nothing else.

Seunghyun doesn't know what  _it_  means, what it entails, but he doesn't think Seungri's talking about the prospect of becoming top billing in another Instagram saga, apropos of Seunghyun's reinvigorated boredom. Or obsession. Whichever.

Seunghyun lounges back in his seat, presses his cheek against the headrest, watches Seungri for a while, long enough to be sure that Seungri hadn't yet gone back to sleep.

A shame, really. Seungri looks prettiest when he sleeps, even when he's ugly: softer, sweeter, more vulnerable. It's probably just directly proportional to the increase in chances that Seunghyun's given to look at him, like some sort of mathematical equation to temper his attraction: the more he stares, the prettier Seungri gets. Arithmetic had never been Seunghyun's strong-point back at school, but once a formula had clicked, he'd at least known how to substitute the rest of the variables in, known how to get to the final solution.

He looks at his photo gallery now, vertices upon vertices of Seungri's sleeping face, thinks  _I don't want it_ in sine-cosines of Seungri's voice; doesn't post them, but doesn't delete them, either.

  

 

✈

 

 

Seungri spends most of the three layover hours in Doha talking on the phone, pacing up and down the catwalk with a knot on his forehead and a frown on his face, disappearing from Seunghyun's periphery entirely to pop back in a few minutes later with a loaf of bread that he dumps unceremoniously on Seunghyun's lap with a succinct order of, "Eat," before walking away again.

Seunghyun's not that hungry, but he takes a bite. It's good, sugary toast and succulent, so he takes another, and then another, and then he's just chewing on paper, spits it out as mindlessly as he'd taken it in his mouth to the sound of Seungri's laugh entering his earshot. 

"Okay, earth to Bingu," Seungri says, plopping down on the seat beside him. The nickname feels strange to hear, like an out-of-body experience, tapping into another identity within himself that he doesn't quite recognize, a past life he'd remorselessly left behind. "If you were that hungry, you should've just told me. I would've bought you another one."

"I'm not hungry," Seunghyun refutes, but the bite mark on the paper bag is almost caricatural in its clarity, so he tweaks gears, says, "I'm just tired," and finds that it's the truest reason for it anyway.

"Did you get some sleep on the flight here?" Seungri asks, and Seunghyun shakes his head. "Well, did you get any sleep before that?" When Seunghyun shakes his head again, the scowl reappears on Seungri's face. "Ah, hyung. You should take better care of yourself."

 _It's not like you got much more sleep than me_ , Seunghyun wants to say, but Seungri's  _I don't want it_  floats around the edges of the thought, and it's enough to make his brain stutter, make him latch a hand around Seungri's elbow and say, "Why should I, when I have you to take care of me?" instead.

"You're such a baby," Seungri mutters, feigning exasperation, but his expression's gentle, no lines marring his face aside from the mild wrinkles cresting around the youth in his eyes. "Am I going to have to parent you throughout this whole trip?"

What Seunghyun has are premature creases of age slicing his forehead, a tree stump baring its rings. Definitely older, debatably wiser. "Why else would you agree to come with me?"

Seungri smiles warmly, but his wrinkles turn carven, constricted, cold. "Of course. Why else?"

Seungri's phone rings in his hand before Seunghyun can think of an appropriate answer. Seungri sighs just once, long and loud, and then he's up from his seat, bossing whoever's on the other end of the line with the neutrality of his Japanese.

Later, when they board their next plane, Seungri slumping low in his seat, Seunghyun puts a face to it, acknowledges it the only way he knows how: Seungri's tired, too.

 

 

✈

 

 

Seunghyun does manage to get some shuteye on the connecting flight from Doha to Barcelona, so the latter part of the ride passes by in an unnotable blur, and for the first time in years, Seunghyun stands in the middle of a bustling, foreign airport without seal-tight obligations weighing his baggage down or pesky managers to drag him by the arm and take him where he needs to go. It's just him and his passport and the GPS on his phone, and he has no idea where he's going but he hardly even cares that he doesn't because he feels—he wants—

" _Benvingut a Catalunya_ ," Seungri says rapturously, accent rough and heavy, and Seunghyun only understands it because there's a placard saying the exact same thing right above him in the brightest shade of yellow he's ever seen.

It's not just him, then. It's him, and the list of things he'd said, but there's also Seungri.

To Seunghyun, that's a liberation in itself. "Where to next?" 

"The hotel," Seungri says, looks at him like it should be obvious, unearths his sunglasses from his jacket pocket and places them back on his face. "I booked us one in Las Ramblas."

He says the name like it should mean something to Seunghyun, so Seunghyun just nods, shoulders his bag closer to his neck, follows Seungri as he walks over to the taxis; appreciates Seungri's gameshow memory, if only because he already knows enough about everything to mean that Seunghyun wouldn't need to know or have to think about anything himself.

"No special service?" Seunghyun asks, though, because there are plenty of things that can and will fade, have faded, but the fun in taunting Seungri never will. "Your friend of a friend couldn't get us a car?"

"She probably could, but I didn't ask," Seungri answers, distracted, too busy trying to hail them a cab. The amount of effort Seungri has to put into it before they get one is an ample reminder of their anonymity here, its authenticity. Back at home, disbandment forces it on you, but none of it ever real, long-lasting; there would always be people who sought after you and clamoured for your presence and picked you out from a million faces going by the way you'd twitched your eyebrow alone, and all you could really do about it is smile and pose and hold the pen that's tied to the end of the bit of string that's wrapped itself around your neck; giving, giving, giving, until there's nothing left for yourself.

Seunghyun's thankful for what he's had, the accomplishments he's shared—the people he's met, always—but he'd like to think that there's something more to it beyond that. Something just for him.

"We're going to be true tourists this time, hyung," Seungri tells him, after he'd brokenly but successfully communicated the address of their hotel to the third taxi driver he's tried to talk to. "No entourage, just us. We're just two normal people who aren't part of an incredibly famous, incredibly rich, incredibly handsome—well, two out of five of us, at least—K-Pop band, because the band doesn't exist anymore. We're the masters of our fate, the captains of our soul, the—"

"Nice motivational, middle-class speech," Seunghyun cuts him off, snorts, before he can really get going and start wearing at the fine threads of energy that Seunghyun still has remaining in store. "Would've been nicer if you didn't tell me you got two first class flights for free, or if I didn't know any better and actually believed that you didn't love all of the attention."

Seungri grins, his shine a little dim, but it's also already nighttime in Barcelona, the flash of streetlights through the cab window filtering weak and periodic, so Seunghyun can't really be sure. "I'm allowed to cheat once in a while." 

"You cheat all the time," Seunghyun points out, and Seungri just lifts a brow and a shoulder in tandem, as if he'd been complimented on the most heralded of talents, doesn't say another word.

The rest of the drive to Las Ramblas is smooth, silent, right as he wants, but Seunghyun still spends most of it feeling like he's done something wrong.

 

 

✈

 

 

Cheating or not, the panoramic suite Seungri's nabbed for him is worth all that hubris just to see Gaudi's best work, even at night, even from afar. Seunghyun might not be well-versed on culture and politics the way Seungri is, but he knows good art when he sees it, knows it like the back of his hand and the colour of his skin and the timing and purpose of every beat of his heart.

Barcelona, the one Seunghyun's seen so far—with the  _Sagrada Familia_ within his eyeline and the old and antiquated and beautiful architecture of the city core meandering far and wide—is living art.

"Shit, that's stunning," Seungri breathes out, walking up right beside him near the terrace railing. There's a wondrous tone to his voice that Seunghyun's not sold on believing, because Seungri doesn't tend to appreciate what he can see unless he can also touch.

It's been a year since his discharge, two for Seunghyun, but Seungri hasn't yet visited his home. Seunghyun hasn't yet invited him, either, and he still won't, because he's banned from the premises of his villa on grounds of that same offence, splaying grubby, fidgety hands across acrylic and marble and—

And. Amongst other things. "Why not Barcelona, huh?"

"I knew you'd say that once you saw this view," Seungri grins, rests his forearms on the banister, hair ruffling with the oncoming gust of wind. He'd kept it short but blond for their final comeback, a subliminal marketing ploy for the strong, lionhearted army man image that YG had carefully crafted for Seungri during his stint in enlistment, but now he's finally letting it grow out again, has dyed it back to jet black. Seunghyun watches his fringe fan across his forehead, stray strands sticking up in the air, and he can't help but think that there's artistry in that, too.

 _Our maknae is abstract_ , he'd used to joke, before disbandment, before conscription, before—but Seunghyun's finding it less and less of a laughing matter now, deep into the after.

Seungri's mouth splits into a yawn, the static frame turning dynamic. "Fuck, I'm sleepy."

"Sleepy Gonzales," Seunghyun supplies idly, and when Seungri looks at him askance, he expands. "Sleepy Gonzales, like Speedy Gonzales. Because we're in Spain?"

Seungri groans. "Okay, one, Speedy Gonzales isn't even Spanish, he's Mexican. Two, Barcelona's not part of Spain anymore, Catalonia's an independent country now, and if you say anything otherwise outside of these four walls then no friend of a friend of mine can get you out of the shit you have coming to you. Seriously, hyung, couldn't you have at least read—"

"Alright, Chatty Gonzales, off to bed with you," Seunghyun interjects, claps his hands like a flamenco dancer, because they're in Spain, or Catalonia, or wherever they are, and it's just common courtesy to participate in the customs. "What floor's your room in?"

The irritation of having been interrupted clears off of Seungri's face, replaced by the owlish widening of his eyes. "What?"

"What's your room number?" Seunghyun rephrases, walks back inside the suite and makes a show of punching arbitrary numbers into the complementary phone. "I'll get one of the bellhops to wheel you into bed. Maybe they'll even tuck you in and read you a bedtime story, if you tip them well enough."

"Funny," Seungri deadpans from behind him, and Seunghyun turns to see that he's lounged himself comfortably across the bed, dirty shoes and flight clothes and dried out contact lenses and all. "Will it be just as funny if I told you that this is my room too?"

Seunghyun lets the steady sound of the dial tone ring in his ear for half a minute before he says, "What?"

"I told you we were gonna be true tourists," Seungri says, muffled against the pillow he's rolled his face into, but Seunghyun can hear the smirk in his voice even better than the loud, automated message that's started playing through the phone. "True tourists don't split a room like this. They  _share_ it."

Seunghyun hasn't shared a room with Seungri, not since they'd used to dorm, much less have they shared a bed. There'd been BIGBANG to condone that predicament, but there's no more BIGBANG, so Seunghyun has no excuse to want it as much as he does now. "You're really gonna make me sleep on the couch? With _my_ back?"

"Don't be stupid." Seungri extends an arm from underneath his stomach, pats at the empty space of King-sized mattress beside him. "You can sleep right here." At Seunghyun's silence, he lifts his head up from the pillow, cranes his neck backwards to pin Seunghyun with a penetrating look. "Unless you think there's something wrong with that."

There's a challenge in there, too, somewhere. An invite. Seunghyun's made a rule of not inviting Seungri, so of course Seungri bypasses it by inviting him instead, takes all of what Seunghyun's worked for and throws it right into demolition. 

Everything's always the same, even when it's different; you can take the boy out of BIGBANG, but you can't take BIGBANG out of the boy. Not the best part of it, at least, not the part he still folds into a tiny square and tucks into the topmost pocket of his wallet, a trinket, evergreen, to carry around and cherish. "Not if you don't." 

"Would I be asking if I did?" Seungri retorts, rises from the bed, bumps shoulders with Seunghyun when he slips right past him for the bathroom. "Since I'd already been so nice, I get shower privileges first."

"Then I get to pick which side of the bed to take," Seunghyun calls back childishly, but Seungri's already closed the door, and Seunghyun has to sit down on the bed from the nauseating wave of déjà vu.

Left side. Guess that's that settled.

 

 

✈

 

 

Every now and then, Seunghyun dreams that he's standing on a stage.

Most times, it's with a ball pit right below him, made of monochromatic human eyes rather than colourful, rainbow plastic. When Seunghyun makes a mistake—trips on his raps or forgets choreography or hooks an arm for fanservice around the wrong member's waist—a trap door opens beneath his feet, and Seunghyun falls through the gap and sinks amongst the spheres and drowns in the vast, white sea.

Sometimes, there's a narrow bridge above the pool of eyes that leads to a shrinking double door. Seunghyun walks briskly towards it, never runs, afraid of toppling over the edge, of being swallowed by the same darkness whole; never reaches the door in time, watches it evaporate shut, drops back into the wide berth anyways and incinerates into a puff of smoke. 

Tonight, though, it's empty, the stadium quiet but for the music of their discography, and that's when Seunghyun sings the loudest, dances without a hint of reservation, sidles up behind the one member he wants and just touches, touches.

 

 

✈ 

  

 

When Seunghyun wakes up, it's already morning, sunshine blasting in voraciously through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The shower's still running, he's moved to the centre of the bed, but that's not what weirds him out the most: what does is that when he reaches his limbs out to stretch away the soreness in his muscles, he finds that his side, the left side, is freezing cold, while the right half of the mattress, warm and dented, feels like it'd just been newly abandoned.

"Did you sleep on the bed last night?" Seunghyun asks, once Seungri's opened the bathroom door, fully clothed but patchy with wetness and a toothbrush gliding through his teeth.

Seungri quirks an eyebrow, spits into the sink. "Yeah, obviously. Why?"

"No reason," Seunghyun says, maneuvers around Seungri to lift the toilet seat cover up to pee, all the while debating if he's finally lost the ability to distinguish between reality and a dream. "Where to next, boss?"

 

 

✈

 

 

Next is a series of self-directed tours across the most famous hot spots of the city, takes up hours that mesh into days that soon consumes the entire duration of their trip.

They walk around Las Ramblas, and Seunghyun buys a stack of postcards from a side street boutique whose elderly vendor, ecstatic from his extortionate profits off the sale, smacks three slobbering kisses on each of Seunghyun's cheeks, to which Seungri cackles about for the next three to four kilometres they trek, according to the step counter app on Seunghyun's phone. The app also gives him a popup warning, stating that he's walking more than he usually does, along with a recommendation for sedentary, middle-aged users to take short rest breaks in between walks to reduce the risk of becoming dehydrated and syncopic that just sets Seungri off to laugh for another kilometre more.

They visit Gaudi's landmarks, Park Güell and the Sagrada Familia, along with a couple of his lesser known designs, ones that Seunghyun hadn't been aware of himself until he'd seen it in the first chapter of the Barcelona guidebook Seungri's been faithfully lugging around in his pocket ever since the day he'd bought it from the hotel gift shop. They go to five different museums at Seunghyun's behest, where he fills up his phone memory with images of rare Dalis and Picassos, Mirós and Fortunys, draining his battery life from the incessant camera use, so he nicks Seungri's phone from the back of his jeans' pocket and connects it to his iCloud for easy access later on and resumes with clicking even more redundant pictures. Although he's tempted to, he doesn't compile them into an Instagram spam of a post, lets _I don't want it_ refrain on loop in his head until it's being said in his own voice. 

They don't go on the wine tour, but they do go on a vermouth crawl, and Seunghyun, tipsy from the alcohol, cheers  _Oppa!_ at the top of his lungs when Seungri gets himself into a tapas eating contest as an end result of a combination of things: the language barrier, the alcohol in Seungri's bloodstream, his penchant for not knowing when to shut the fuck up. Seungri wins, somehow, and by the end of the night the whole bar's chanting a mantra of  _Oppa! Oppa! Oppa!_ that Seungri loftily spreads his arms to, chest inflated like a balloon about to pop, and Seunghyun looks and looks to take up his fill, feels so light and so warm and so, so fucking  _free_.

They go everywhere, eat good food, drink good wine, and for that whole time, no one recognizes them. No one shrieks on the other side of a glass window when he goes shopping around the local stores, no one tugs at any piece of cloth on his body just to get a touch of his celebrity. No one calls him T.O.P, because no one calls him anything, and it makes him feel like a nobody but the nobody he'd like to be, the nobody who gets to live his life and have unrestricted fun and be anything or anyone he's ever truly envied.

"Where to next?" Seunghyun asks, giddy and brimming, arms wrapped around Seungri's shoulders from behind as they ditch the bar, Seungri's giggles vibrating from his back to the front of Seunghyun's chest, and Seunghyun thinks  _yes_ , thinks  _good_ , thinks  _maybe I also finally get to have this_. 

"Madrid!" Seungri sings, lists into Seunghyun's body, swaying against him like a Balearic current, and Seunghyun dares to press his mouth to the base of Seungri's neck; isn't rewarded for it but isn't punished, either, and that's freedom enough for him. "Or Gijon! Or, or, or Valencia, I've already been to Valencia! Or—or anywhere, hyung, really. We could go anywhere."

"Anywhere, huh," Seunghyun murmurs against his skin, licks the salt of Seungri's sweat and the tang of his cologne, teeters between the line of what's really there and what he thinks ought to be. "I'm liking the sound of that."

"Then let's go," Seungri says, breaths staggering. Seunghyun's too drunk to decrypt if that's from the alcohol or the lurid effect he has on people that everyone's gassed up for most of his life, but he knows which option he likes, so in the end he just decides that it's all because of him. "Let's go anywhere, hyung. Let's leave Barcelona."

"Okay," Seunghyun says, kisses the slope of Seungri's jaw, the back of his ear, and even if Seunghyun were to find out that Seungri had meant more than leaving Barcelona, he would have still agreed. "Okay." 

 

 

✈

 

 

They don't leave Barcelona, not yet, but Seunghyun's okay with that, too.

 

 

✈

 

 

There's exceptions to every rule, of course, inevitable cons to cancel out the seemingly never-ending pileups of pros. Balancing both sides of the equation; mathematics.

Once, when Seungri introduces the two of them as both Seunghyun to a group of people who Seunghyun quite frankly thinks shouldn't matter, two guys boom out a laugh and whisper something low between themselves. Seunghyun doesn't understand it, just knows it's Catalan, knows that behind its Roman musicality that there's something mean hidden between each syllable, ugly amidst all the surface beauty.

But Seungri seems to understand it, ever the quick-to-learn linguist. His shoulders go stiff and his smile turns wan and he bids them goodbye without trying to get any of their numbers first, and that's as good a red flag as any that there's something horribly, irretractably wrong; Seungri is social, secure, no longer bothered by the people who turn him away because there will always be more to turn to, and if something's made him react that way, made him so upset to have upped and left, then it's something that Seunghyun knows will plague him until he either uses it for spite or lets it implode on himself.

"It's nothing, hyung," Seungri tries to dismiss initially, when Seunghyun asks him what's been said, but Seunghyun keeps on prodding until he eventually bursts. "Just—it's stupid. It's so fucking dumb. I can learn all the languages in the world, and still all I'll ever hear people say in those same languages is fucking  _chink_."

And Seunghyun understands, feels the name—the slur—coil around his heart, like all the fingers that have pointed at him for looking foreign in a foreign country have all punctured themselves inside his chest and taken him in a vice grip. "That's what that asshole said?"

"Close enough," Seungri laughs, morbid, bitter. "He asked his friend why all Asians have the same name. As if there wasn't three fucking Davids in that group, too, fuck."

Seunghyun's still angry himself, but he's relieved to hear that Seungri can still find humour in the situation, however bleak it may be. "Fuck them. They're probably just mad that the girls they want to fuck looked like they wanted to fuck us instead."

That earns him a genuine smile. "They really did, didn't they? Now I'm annoyed that I didn't get their number."

"Who needs them?" Seunghyun asks, rhetorical, steps up into Seungri's space, hooks his thumbs into the belt loops on Seungri's jeans and pulls him in. "We can always just have some fun on our own. You and me, in Barcelona."

In Barcelona, without the constant scrutiny, the shadows of their legacy hanging off them like a leash, Seunghyun's grown to be more reckless: knows the consequences, understands what they mean, is prepared to tackle them head-on, this time around.

But Seungri just laughs, more bitter than the last, pushes him away, and Seunghyun knows, unquestionably, that this is reality. "We already tried that, hyung, and we both know how that turned out."

Seungri's good at prioritization, but he's just as good at deflection as well; does it now, brings the topic back to the lesser of two hurts, says, "If we were still in BIGBANG, they'd probably have kissed our fucking feet."

And Seunghyun can only nod, agree, but when Seungri walks away, he also thinks  _no_ , thinks  _if we were still in BIGBANG, they'd kiss our feet, but they'd still think the same thing_ , thinks,  _if we were still in BIGBANG, then I wouldn't get to be here with you right beside me_.

That night, when they sleep on the bed, Seungri sticks to his side, and so does Seunghyun; dreams of the stage splitting in the middle, with no bridge in sight for him to cross, miles between him and the door that still slams itself closed.

 

 

✈ 

 

 

Three years ago, Seunghyun had made a mistake.

Seunghyun had made many mistakes, the year before that, but he doesn't like to talk about them, likes to keep those regrets to himself. It doesn't matter what they were, anyway; what matters is what it's done to him, what further fallout it's brought, what other mistakes he's made just to have the rest of them pale in comparison.

Three years ago was when the rest of the members had gone for their mandatory enlistment, and Seunghyun had taken a leave of absence from his own service just to see them off.

The memory of the night before is hazy, a fever dream, but Seunghyun remembers three things as if they'd just happened three days back: Jiyong's hands shaking around his wine glass even as his voice had remained immovable as he'd made fun of Daesung's close shave; Youngbae's eyes squinting with his smile, slitted small enough that you couldn't make out the damp redness overlaying the whites unless you'd moved up close enough to hug him; Daesung laughing, and laughing, and laughing, even when his voice had gone hoarse and everyone else had stopped with the pretense of it all.

The fourth, he remembers, because he rewinds it every day, sees it from the moment he shuts his eyes to the very moment they open up, sees it whether he's awake or asleep or something in between: Seungri, when everyone else had gone, burying his face into Seunghyun's collarbone, scraping the sensitive sheet of skin over it with the sharp points of his teeth, telling Seunghyun how he wants his goodbye and taking it right from him.

"Seungri," Seunghyun had tried to say, but Seungri had kissed the words away from his mouth and replaced them with something more primal, guttural, with a cant of his hips against his. "Fuck, you feel—"

"Good, right?" Seungri had said, a breath and a moan and a cry for help, had snaked his hand from the back of Seunghyun's neck to slip between their bodies, dipping hot, insistent fingers past the belt and band of Seunghyun's pants. "You feel good, too, hyung. I want to make you feel good." Seungri had taken him in hand, firm, sure, and Seunghyun would have chalked it down to how Seungri is, how he can be, fearless and take-charge and always ready for conquering, but there'd been a desperation in his eyes that'd let Seunghyun know that it, whatever _it_  was, hadn't been borne out of a snap decision or a last-gasp attempt at sovereignity; Seungri had waited for this, wanted for it the same way Seunghyun had wanted for so many, many things that he'd tried so hard to repress. "Let me make you feel good, Seunghyun."

That's what had done it for Seunghyun: the plea in his voice, the prettiness of his longing, the promise of it all feeling as good as Seunghyun had always imagined, as good as Seunghyun hadn't felt like in so long. He'd pushed Seungri against the wall and kissed him until his lips had swollen red and raw and let him jerk his cock in his hand in slow, meticulous strokes; tried to hold off, to make it last forever, recorded Seungri's every pant and groan in his head to pull out like a disc and play again later to appreciate every turn; looked at Seungri's face, at the short crop of his hair, primed for duty and responsibility, at the rumple of skin on the cartilage of his ear, mangled by the piercing he'd gotten for a comeback they'd done years, centuries back, done for the sake of the millions of people who'd expected a lot, too much—

And Seunghyun had disappointed enough, had thought of everything that had led him to slip in that moment, to give in, and he'd tore himself away before it could really feel good because feeling good wasn't what Seunghyun had deserved; not then, when Seungri was about to shackle himself off to a force much bigger than their status could ever conceive, and not even before, when Seunghyun had been foolish enough to think that the length of his own chains had been suffice in giving him breadth to taste what it means to be free.

"No," Seunghyun had said, drawn back, the collar around his neck constricting. "We can't. We're not doing this, Seungri."

Seungri had looked stung, rejected, but he'd also looked ready to fight. "Why not? Even until now—why can't you just ever let yourself—"

Seunghyun had already let himself do a lot of things that he shouldn't have, had already accepted its ramifications, but letting himself drag Seungri into it wasn't going to be another. "What do you think would happen if this gets out? All your work, your investments—"

"I won't let it get out," Seungri had scathed, determined, and Seunghyun had been reminded of how young Seungri could be, how the three years between them could sometimes feel like decades' worth of a division. "We have money now, respect—"

"You think any of those last?" Seunghyun had snapped, because Seungri never thought of consequences, only thought of instant gratification. There was a time when Seunghyun had been like him, not too long before that, but he'd paid his price, learned his lesson. "You think that's worth anything? You think just because we're in BIGBANG, people wouldn't care?"

"Fine, they'll care more," Seungri had defied, "But  _I_ don't. I don't care if they care. We're not doing anything wrong."

"There's always going to be something wrong in everything we do." And that had been the only right that Seunghyun had known, the only truth he'd been conditioned to.

"Yeah," Seungri had said, had laughed, like maybe it had gotten through to him, like he'd stopped resisting his own restraints. "Yeah, I guess. Just like now, right? We're doing something wrong?"

But it had been an accusation, directed solely at Seunghyun, _you're doing something wrong_ , and Seunghyun had just added it to the growing list of his most damnable faults. "Yeah, we are."

"Alright." Seungri had moved back closer towards Seunghyun, near enough to touch, hadn't; looked up at him, just as everyone else had done, put him on a pedestal so high that there was nowhere else to go but down, "Bye, then. I'll see you soon." Left, because he could, because everyone was always, always leaving Seunghyun.

The sound of the door clicking shut, even in his dreams, is as real as anything Seunghyun's ever heard. 

 

 

✈ 

 

 

"Where are you going?"

Seungri looks at him through the dresser mirror, doesn't turn around. Keeping his distance, ever since last night, ever since Seunghyun had committed another misdemeanour. "Dinner with some investors. I'm trying to put out feelers, see if I can launch an Aori branch in Europe. Why not start here?"

Seunghyun could've figured, what with Seungri's attire: smart white button down, tucked into his neatly pleated slacks, hair tamed and coiffed away from his face with gel. Formal, efficient, a severance package Seunghyun wants to unwrap. "How'd you even get that going? We've only been here a few days."

Seungri tilts his head down, but he's still looking at Seunghyun, flattered eyes and smile visible with his reflection. "A friend of a friend. She'll be there with me."

"I see," Seunghyun mumbles, unable to keep the terseness off of his tone. He breaks the eye contact first in his shame, fluffs the pillow underneath him as distraction. "So you'll be in someone else's bed tonight, then? I'll finally get this one to myself?"

Seungri makes a strange noise in response, and when Seunghyun chances a quick glance at him, he sees his lips curled into his mouth, chin dimpling in that way it does when he's trying to smother a laugh. "Nope, because you're coming with me."

"Excuse me?" Seunghyun's not up for spending the whole night struggling through his minimal English vocabulary while he watches Seungri play hooky with some girl he's probably only fucking for the connections. Probably. Seungri's well within marrying age, so it's probably about time he settled, probably shouldn't bother Seunghyun that this friend of a friend sounds more serious than an acquaintance, probably should confirm to Seunghyun that he's already missed his chance. Probably, probably, probably, but.

"You're excused," Seungri quips, jiggles his hand so that his watch slots down just below his wrist bone. "You can excuse yourself as you get ready."

"I'm not going," Seunghyun whines, kicks his legs out petulantly for safe measure. It's not as if he's not exhausted, anyways, and his step counter app could attest to that; he's already been notified that he's reached his daily step quota for the day—the month, even—and going over the algorithmically calculated amount would just be boasting, at best, or negligent of his body's refractory period for recuperation, at worst. "I'd literally rather do anything else than have to pretend like anything any of these people say makes a lick of sense."

"The investors are Japanese," Seungri informs dully, unimpressed with Seunghyun's fit. He's seen worse, Seunghyun knows, because half of those instances were of Seungri's tantrums themselves. "And my friend of a friend's Korean, so you can at least talk to her if you feel left out."

Seunghyun had at least thought she'd be Catalan, or Spanish, or some other nationality who has a disturbing fixation with wanting to be Asian, or wanting to fuck Asian men. If she's Korean, then she's a compatriot, maybe an expat, but she'd still be more likely to be embraced back home, Seungri could still actually probably want to marry her—

Probably. Seunghyun's chest clenches, Pavlovian, at every thought of the word. "But then she'd think I'm more handsome than you—and she'd be right, of course, but I wouldn't want to steal her away. Hyung wouldn't do that to his favourite maknae."

There's a moment where Seungri's shoulders square up in tension, but it's gone by the time he's turned to fully look at Seunghyun. "You haven't said that in a while."

Seungri's never been someone who could intimidate Seunghyun. All the same, Seunghyun still fidgets uncomfortably underneath his gaze. "I don't need to say it for people to know it. It's an indisputable fact that I'm more handsome than you."

"To sycophants, maybe," Seungri jibes, rolls his eyes, but it's almost tender of a gesture, affectionate. "And I'd meant  _maknae_ , anyway. You haven't called me maknae in years."

That's because Seunghyun hasn't truly talked to Seungri in years, either, not intimately, and that's as much a product of time constraints as it is just Seunghyun's timorous caution. "Well, you're technically not the maknae anymore, since BIGBANG's already disbanded. We all have to age out and move on from that eventually."

"That...actually makes sense," Seungri says, bopping his head in agreement like Seunghyun had just played him a new song snippet, which Seunghyun had rarely done, even back in BIGBANG, so he doesn't know why he recalls it. "You've gotten wiser in your middle age, hyung. I'm proud of you."

Seunghyun launches his body pillow at Seungri like a missile on target. "Yet you're still just as fucking bratty as ever. Colour me disappointed, but not shocked."

"It's an eternal charm," Seungri preens, laughing, throws the pillow back towards the bed but doesn't aim it at Seunghyun; maybe intentionally, just to testify to the maturity Seunghyun's talking about. "Get up and get dressed already, we have to be there in half an hour."

Seunghyun is wiser, aged, so he'll give Seungri what he wants—as insignificant as it is, inadequate compared to what Seunghyun had withheld from him years before. "Don't get mad at me if your friend of a friend decides she wants to take me home instead."

"If that happens," Seungri starts, grinning, gorgeous, and Seunghyun remembers to forget that he hasn't, isn't, won't be moving on. Not probably. "Then I'll just take you home myself."

 

 

✈

 

 

It's an outdoor dinner, the gazebo and lawn furniture and fairy lights type of affair. The pollen from the spring bloom itches irritatingly at Seunghyun's skin through his suit, but the food is delicious, the  _cava_ even better, and he doesn't embarrass himself with his unmalleable tongue in front of the other guests because a good few of them are some sort of Asian that Seunghyun knows the dialect for. All in all, it's not as terrible an experience as he'd already prematurely surmised it to be, and it's enough for Seunghyun not to write the entirety of their excursion off.

It's made even better when Seungri ushers to introduce him to his friend of a friend, finds that she's already macking on some other guy who wears an identical ring to hers on his left hand.

"This is Eunae," Seungri says, smirks as he reveals the next person while Seunghyun narrows his eyes at him over Eunae's head. "And this is her husband, Jonas."

"Nice to meet you," Seunghyun greets, all in Korean, and Jonas' eyes light up in comprehension when he shakes his hand, so Seunghyun guesses he speaks the language, or at the very least, understands. "Thanks for helping us set up this trip."

Eunae looks confused, and Seungri's laugh is nervous, but Seunghyun doesn't get to piece out exactly what he's missing because Seungri's already moved him along, hand set on the small of Seunghyun's back.

"You didn't say she was married," Seunghyun gripes, trying to bring them back to banter, to safety, to somewhere far away from the shiver that runs down the axons of Seunghyun's spine.

"I didn't say she wasn't," Seungri contests triumphantly, vindicated, still hasn't pulled his hand away from Seunghyun even when he's already stopped leading, is just walking at Seunghyun's pace beside him now, even and unhurried. "Would it stop you from wanting to go home with her if she asks?"

"That's how you think of your friend of a friend? An adulterer?" Seunghyun says, even though the answer is  _yes_ , will have always been  _yes_ because of reasons that has nothing to do with Eunae's husband or Eunae's sanctity in marriage or Eunae herself, just—just. "I raised you better than to be this catty, maknae."

"Like you even did any raising at all, you big man-child," Seungri laughs, and then at a turn, says seriously, "I really miss it when you call me that."

As sure as he is in his decision, in his refusal to look back and doubt, oddly enough, Seunghyun's missed it as well. "Okay, maknae. Now I'll just call you maknae all the time, maknae. Is that alright, maknae? Would maknae like a _pamb tomato_ from one of the hors d'oeuvres plates?"

"Overkill, hyung, and it's _p_ _a amb tomàquet_ ," Seungri corrects mildly, digs his fingers into the tail of Seunghyun's back, just a slight pressure, before he finally drops his hand. Seunghyun finds, an immediate second after the fact, that he misses that, too. "I'm going to talk to the investors now, so if you want to come—"

"I'll manage by myself," Seunghyun says, still not up for much socializing, flaps his hands to shoo Seungri away. "Go do your Donald Trump thing."

Seungri's face twists in disgust, mutters, "Sometimes, I really fucking hate you," before shuffling away, and Seunghyun automatically wonders how Seungri feels about him during the other times that he doesn't, just as hastily stops when he realizes what he's doing.

 

 

✈ 

 

 

Most of the Asian contingent at the party have gathered at Seungri's investors' table, Eunae all wrapped up in Jonas on the table across as if the occasion was their honeymoon and not a public event, so Seunghyun doesn't really have anyone to talk to unless he's willing to hold a conversation with a Catalan native as his phone's translator app talks for him. 

He's not, so he puts his phone to better use and calls Daesung instead. "Daesungie?"

"Hey, hyung," Daesung greets, voice muted and raspy over the line, like how it usually is when he's overused and strained his vocal chords at the recording studio, a concert. That period of halcyon is over, though, so he'd probably just been asleep. "How's Barcelona?"

"It's..." Seunghyun doesn't really know how to respond to the question, doesn't have the right words for it, not in any language that he does know. "It's beautiful, it's Barcelona. Did I wake you up?"

"It doesn't matter," Daesung answers, which in Jiyong speak would mean  _yes, you asshole, but I'm worried about you enough to just pick up the phone without caring that it's four in the fucking morning here in Korea_ , so Seunghyun starts to feel a tinge of remorse at having had not called Jiyong instead, because at least then he wouldn't feel as guilty about waking him as he would be about other things, other, more personal slights, unpardonable misgivings. "Are you out right now?"

"Yeah," Seunghyun says, sweeps his eyes across the field as if he could transmit the vision to Daesung through the signals emitting from his phone. "Seungri dragged me to some fancy investors' party. He wants to expand Aori to Europe now, surprise, surprise."

"That's our maknae, Mr. Worldwide," Daesung chuckles, and maybe it's not that Seunghyun hadn't had the opportunity to use the endearment, maybe he'd just selectively chosen not to hear it all these years, because when Daesung says _maknae_ , it sounds as natural and effortless as it's ever been. "How is he?"

Seunghyun looks over at the table, sees Seungri articulating something expressively with his hands. "Not letting anyone else get a word in, as usual."

"I didn't ask what he's doing," Daesung clarifies without edge, because Daesung has infinite patience with Seunghyun, but there's still an unintentional jaggedness to the statement that jabs a little at Seunghyun. "I asked  _how_ he's doing."

Seunghyun gives the riddle a contemplative minute before giving up. "What's the difference?"

"With Seungri, a lot," Daesung says, and that's a mind game in its own right. "Anyways, how about you? How are _you_ doing?"

When Daesung diverts from a topic, it's usually because Seunghyun isn't ready to handle it, so he's grateful enough to just take the transition as it comes, dedicates one of the postcards he'd bought to Daesung's parents as thanks for giving birth to the most immaculate of angels. "I'm okay, having fun. Can't talk to anyone for shit, though, but whatever. Seungri runs his mouth enough for the both of us."

"And we're back to Seungri," Daesung says, sly, and Seunghyun takes it all back: he's not an angel, just another demon blinding others to his true identity with his Halloween store brand halo. "You really do love talking about him, don't you."

He knows who to blame for Daesung's descent into mischief, but saying it out loud would also just prove Daesung right, so he doesn't, just says, "If you mean making fun of him, then yes," as his justification.

"Okay, hyung," Daesung says, disbelieving, and Seunghyun almost wishes that Youngbae was in on the conversation because he'd back Seunghyun up, and Jiyong would also understand because he'd make a career out of laughing at Seungri's expense if he could—

And suddenly Seunghyun misses BIGBANG, misses all of it, misses the music and the attendant melodrama and most of all, the members, and before he even figures that that's what the stuffiness in his chest is, he's already saying, "Sorry for breaking the band up," into the receiver.

"Ah," Daesung sighs, and for once, it seems as if he's lost his patience for Seunghyun. "You know no one blames you for that. Jiyong might bitch and glare at you occasionally about it, but it's only because you got to that answer before he did. Even he knew it was time, he was just too stubborn to admit it."

"Still," Seunghyun says, and it's like picking at stitches, opening up a surgical wound that he'd hidden behind five layers of gauze and hospital gowns; forgetting it existed, never really allotting it the time it needed to heal. "I hadn't—I wanted it to last for as long as we could still do it, but I was just..."

"Tired," Daesung finishes, soft, and Seunghyun knows that if there was anything to really stand the test of time, it'd be Daesung's ability to understand him with one word. "I know, hyung. We all were. But I know you had other reasons for it too, and if you think we resent you for it, then it really is good that we disbanded because that means you still don't trust us at all."

"I trust you," Seunghyun says, vehement, because he does, has always done; he trusts Daesung not to hate him and trusts Youngbae not to bring it up until he's ready and trusts Jiyong not to interfere even when he so badly wants to play leader and push him to what he needs to do; trusts all of them enough to admit—to himself, to Daesung, now—that, "I want—"

"I know." Trusts that they know, without having to ask, and that Seunghyun won't have to say anything because they'd already completed the sentence for him; brothers in arms, hearts and minds connected, the same love running through their veins. "Have you talked to Seungri?"

"I'm trying." He's not, but he's about to start. Why not here, as Seungri had said, in beautiful, beautiful Barcelona? "And if not, we'll always have Barcelona, right?"

"You watch too many movies," Daesung derides, but there's encouragement in there, too, hope. "But whatever you have in Barcelona, you can always have it back here at home, too."

"Is that your way of saying you want me to get you a souvenir?" Seunghyun slags, because he can't not, because the guilt in his throat's already been cleared, anyway, doesn't need more than what Daesung's already given, what Seunghyun's already got.

"Just your piece of mind, hyung," Daesung decrees, and Seunghyun abides; wise as he is, has become, Daesung's still the wisest of them all. "Either that, or pay for my roaming charges. This call's costing me a million and a half."

 

 

✈

 

 

Seungri's already doing the rounds, shaking every negotiator's hand, as Seunghyun walks back over to the main hall. The band for hire's playing a less aggressive tune than before, and most of the couples have moved towards the grass, barefoot, to dance to the rhythm, slow.

"You wanna dance?" Seungri asks as Seunghyun watches, somehow already by his side. That must mean something, surely, but Seunghyun's never been much good at metaphors. "Has retirement really done the impossible and made _Choi Seunghyun_  finally want to groove?"

"Retirement makes me want to do a lot of things," Seunghyun answers, too immediately forthright, shows in the way Seungri's eyes flit away from his face and out towards the field, so Seunghyun grins conspiratorially and adds, "Like hitting you on the back of the head and not being afraid to get you too concussed for a show."

"So just the same old," Seungri drawls, but his demeanour's less stunted, his smile a little more pronounced. "Honestly, though, do you really want to dance?"

"Why not?" Seunghyun shrugs, collects both of Seungri's hands and drags him into an open space, well immersed within the dancing crowd so that no one and everyone can see, but Seunghyun doesn't care which it is. Retirement makes you want to do a lot of new things, but it also brings a lot of things back. "When in Catalonia, do as the Catalans do."

"Is that going to be a new catchphrase?" Seungri questions, hand already stationed at the nape of Seunghyun's neck while the other hand stays in Seunghyun's grip. Like instinct, like he doesn't care; like he's _never_ cared. "Because I hate to break it to you, but—"

"Shh." Seunghyun brings a hand up to press his index finger against Seungri's lips, effectively closing them shut, before he plants it over Seungri's hip and glides it down to rest over the swell of his ass. "Just be happy I'd even said Catalonia instead of Spain."

"I guess I should." Seungri doesn't make a scene about the contact like Seunghyun expects, just moves Seunghyun's hand calmly back to his hip, lays his own hand over it for a while as if to make sure it stays glued, lifts it again when Seunghyun poses no combat and places it back on Seunghyun's neck. "Did you make any new friends while I was gone?"

He says it like he's checking up on a child, asking him how his day went at school, Seunghyun being the new kid in class who'd been too shell shocked to talk to his peers. "You brat. I don't actually rely on you that much, as badly as you want to believe so."

"You wouldn't last a second here without me," Seungri shoots back, accompanying grin smug and self-aggrandizing, and Seunghyun gets the urge to actually hit him on the head even though it's just the painful truth. "I saw you talking on the phone."

"You're the one who dragged me here. Against my wishes, by the way, so that could count for assault," Seunghyun says, steers Seungri away from a potential clash with another couple, just as he tries to steer the conversation back in his favour. "I was talking to Daesung."

"Of course," Seungri says, unsurprised, maybe even a little disappointed. "The antisocials, banding together in harmony of solitude and the lack of face-to-face communication."

"That's a little rude to say about someone who was kind enough to ask you how you're doing in a conversation that shouldn't even concern you," Seunghyun snipes, mostly for the sake of shutting Seungri up than it is actual outrage on Daesung's behalf, but as always, Seungri only hears the part of the admonishment that props his morale back up.

"So you guys were talking about me?" Seungri grins, fingers rubbing lullingly against the bottom of Seunghyun's scalp. "You should've handed me the phone, then. I feel like I haven't talked to Daesung-hyung since the disbandment."

"Why haven't you?" Seunghyun has his reasons, but it's always nice to know everyone else's, nice to know if it's the same or different or if there's no lamentable reason at all.

"Too busy," Seungri says, which is the answer Seunghyun had predicted he'd give, but Seungri soon shakes away at Seunghyun's complacency, elucidates on his response a little more. "And I miss him too much. Talking to him when I can't see him will just make it even worse."

Seunghyun's aware that the awkwardness they'd been famed for has long since dissipated into collegiality that they'd had no choice but to forge, but he hadn't thought it'd go past those same stages of comfort, hadn't thought that it ever could. "I didn't know you two were that close."

"You wouldn't," Seungri says, careless and flippant, but Seunghyun thinks it sounds like something of a chore. "You miss out on a lot of new information when you choose not to talk."

Seunghyun doesn't miss out on the implications of that disclosure, but he does choose to ignore it. "If we were still in BIGBANG, do you think you'd talk to him more?"

Seungri stares up at him for a while, mulling it over. In the ensuing silence, Seunghyun realizes that the band's started playing a faster, uptempo jig, the other couples quickening their movements to match the beats of the song, but Seungri doesn't move to do anything more than their previous sway, so neither does Seunghyun.

"Maybe," Seungri eventually hums, and Seunghyun's gut lances in guilt despite being told and finally knowing that he's done nothing wrong. "Maybe I'd get more easy chances to talk to him, but why shouldn't I try harder? Why does it have to change just because there's no more BIGBANG?"

And that sounds more like he's trying to convince himself rather than him trying to convince Seunghyun. "Disbandment changes things, though."

"Does it really?" Seungri asks, eyes set on something or someone or anything or anyone that's not Seunghyun, tone brooking no contest for any commentary or answer. "We're still the same people we were in BIGBANG, I still want to know what's happening with all of you. Just because we're not called BIGBANG doesn't mean we're not BIGBANG anymore."

It's different, Seunghyun concludes; different from what everyone else has already said, different from what Seunghyun had concocted himself, on his own time, on his own path to self-condemnation. "Things have changed, Seungri."

"Has it?" Seungri repeats, just as Seunghyun had with his viewpoint, and retirement means Seunghyun gets to take his time, but why should he take any more? "Are you any different than how you were before?"

"Yeah," Seunghyun asserts roughly, harsher than he intends, but it gets Seungri whipping his head back towards him, so he hops on the momentum before it can get lost, before he can regress back to the same person he'd been who'd made mistake after mistake, time and time again. "Yeah, I am. Seungri—"

" _Perdoni_?" Someone says to his left, and Seunghyun would yell in frustration if he knew that he could get away with it, if people cared enough about who he is, was, to not interrupt. "Sorry to stop you dance, but me and my partner, we think you are...ah,  _ets tant dolç_?"

"He wants to say you are very sweet, to dance slow as you are in this music," another guy, presumably his partner, pipes in with an amicable smile, wraps an arm around the other man's waist as he asks, "Have you two been together long?"

Seunghyun is so annoyed that he barely even makes it out, Seungri so, so tense in his hold, and before he can truly digest what the question means, Seungri's already peeling away from him and saying, "No. We are not together. You think wrong."

Both guys look embarrassed, apologetic, even if Seungri says every bit of it in English, imperfect diction notwithstanding. They probably would've understood it regardless if it was Spanish or Korean or something else, because Seungri's body language in relation to Seunghyun is deafening, universal. "Ah, sorry, sorry. We just think, with how you hold and look at each other—"

"It's okay," Seungri reassures, but his voice and smile and posture are tight, not reassuring at all. "Excuse me."

He walks away, dodging bodies left and right, moves farther and farther from Seunghyun's reach, and Seunghyun watches all the while hearing the vague noise of a door closing in his ears.  

"We did not mean to insult," the guy says, his own voice dripping with repentance, a sliver of contempt. "Please tell your friend sorry."

Seunghyun knows what it must mean to the two of them, unregulatedly happy in their relationship, in their freedom, probably all they've ever known, but it's never been about shame for Seungri. It's never been about Seungri's inhibitions, only Seunghyun's, so he knows where the fault should lie, knows who they should look at with scorn.

"He is mad at me, not you," he says, as well as he can, is willing to take the blame; just this once, just for now, just for Seungri. "I am sorry. I must go to him."

The guy must hear something else in his words, because he eases up, face softening with a smile, and Seunghyun thinks that what he feels might need no translation, means the same in every language, however it's said. "Go, go. Tell him."

When in Catalonia, do as the Catalans do, so Seunghyun does as he's told. "I will."

 

 

✈

 

 

It takes a couple of minutes and unwanted conversations before Seunghyun can hunt Seungri down, but he finds him in the end, stalling by the fountain a little ways off from the venue, hands stretched out towards the light trickle of water flowing from the main spout.

"Are you thinking of jumping?" Seunghyun says, because he gets to joke about these things, now, having had known firsthand what the worst of despair can make you do. "Don't be so dramatic."

Seungri doesn't seem to think so. He turns his head away from the stallion centrepiece to send a biting glare Seunghyun's way. "I really fucking hate you, do you know that?"

"You've already said that," Seunghyun tuts, walking closer. The fountain's not even a foot deep, when he looks in after reaching the edge, which just makes the joke even funnier in his head. "Not even three hours ago. Disbandment's really made you lose your touch, maknae."

"Yeah, well, disbandment makes you do a lot of things, or whatever," Seungri grumbles mimickingly, splashes Seunghyun with a small spray of water as he bends down beside Seungri. "And stop calling me maknae, if you're just doing it for my sake. I don't want you to do me any favours."

"Isn't that funny, because I also don't want to do anything you tell me to do," Seunghyun says, cups water into his hands and pours it down the front of Seungri's shirt, smiles gleefully when Seungri squawks in indignation. "Believe me, calling you maknae is all for my personal enjoyment."

"No fucking kidding," Seungri mutters, wringing his shirt out, revealing a stripe of his belly that Seunghyun yearns to touch. "Is that all you're going to do? Mock me? Because I'd rather you go back there and suffer not knowing how to talk to anyone."

Seunghyun would actually rather do that now than have some cheesy heart-to-heart with fucking _Seungri_ , of all people, but it's long overdue, and Seunghyun's steadfast in not blowing any more of his shots. "But then that means I'll be leaving you here alone."

"That's the idea," Seungri says, sarcastic, sits up on the fountain's ledge. "Disbandment's really made you less able to take a hint, hyung."

"Disbandment makes you do a lot of things," Seunghyun reiterates, squats in front of Seungri's knees, looks up at him as adoringly as he can before plunging straight in. " _T'estimo_."

Seungri pulls his hands away when Seunghyun tries to take them in his, laugh made out of pure acid and sheer incredulity. "Amazing, Seunghyun, really fucking amazing. Good job on finally learning a new language! Will you say that to me in Korean, or is it something you only know how to say here in Barcelona?" He stands up, but Seunghyun knows he's close to buckling, sees the way his legs shake with his lowered position. "Is it really disbandment that's making you do this, or is it not being in Korea anymore?"

Seunghyun only stays quiet because he wants to give Seungri an honest, thorough answer, wants to give him what he deserves, but Seungri takes it as some kind of confirmation for one or the other, just laughs at him even more. "Of course. Nothing's really changed, has it, Seunghyun?"

"Everything's changed," Seunghyun says, and it's not enough, it's never enough, but Seunghyun's fucking  _trying_. "Jesus, will you just let me—"

"No," Seungri trembles out, eyes ablaze with the same emotions it had that night he'd left for conscription, fury and sorrow and heartbreak so fresh that rots away at Seunghyun. "No, I won't let you, because you don't mean it now, and you'll mean it even less when we go back home—"

"I asked for the disbandment," Seunghyun cuts in, and it gets him the reaction his earlier admission should've gotten, if Seungri had been just the least bit more normal and less neurotic. "I asked to disband BIGBANG. Not Jiyong."

Seungri gapes, and gapes, and gapes, and Seunghyun would make a joke about the flies being bigger in Barcelona than they are in Korea and thus harder to swallow, if he wasn't so rattled himself by all the waiting he's doing for Seungri's response.

It's not even worthwhile of a wait. All he gets is a, "Why?" and the same confounded expression on Seungri's face.

"I was tired of always doing the same thing," Seunghyun tries to explain anyways, stands up from his crouch, almost lands on the puddle beside him in his uncoordination. "I got to do a lot of the things I wanted, back in BIGBANG, but not everything. Never anything like this." He waves his arm around, like it could encapsulate what  _this_ actually means, how much he wants it all to last. "After—after everything, I was always scared of what doing what I wanted would do to you guys, to the group. So I tried to be more careful, but being careful and not doing what I want has never been who I am."

He leaves it at that, hoping Seungri can just add up the rest. He's always been the smartest, always been better than Seunghyun in Math, in not caring, in everything else.

As good as he is in his academics, he's always been best at torturing Seunghyun; usually with his mouth, the secrets he squeals about him on national television, but even more than that, more than Seunghyun would like, it's the way Seungri can make him want him regardless of what he does, of whether he knows it or not. "What is it that you want badly enough to make you ask for disbandment, though?"

"Leaving Barcelona," Seunghyun says, because he still has his pride and because Seungri already knows, Seungri's always known, wouldn't have asked him to say it so explicitly if he hadn't, is just another form of his torture. "Going home, but still getting to do all the things I got to do here."

Seungri looks at him, asking and offering all at once. "Do you think you could do it now? Go back and do this all over again?" 

"I could." Because Seunghyun has given enough, and now he's ready to take. "Take me home, Seungri."

Seungri doesn't say anything for a long, long moment, spends minutes that feel like hours that feel like fifteen years just staring at Seunghyun, but when he steps up to weave his hands together at the back of Seunghyun's neck and pulls his head down to press lips against lips, Seunghyun knows Seungri gets the whole of it and is saying the exact same thing. "Okay."

 

 

✈ 

 

 

They don't make it home, or to the hotel, before Seungri's launching himself at Seunghyun, climbing his lap in the backseat of their cab as the driver, when he's not looking at the road ahead, trains them with the most horrified and disgusted of glares through his rear-view mirror. By virtue of being the one facing the front, Seunghyun tries to look as penitent as he believably can with both of his hands squeezing vigorously at Seungri's ass.

"Wait," Seunghyun does say, though, when Seungri pulls away from his mouth long enough to let him breathe  _and_ speak, because he doesn't want to give any more fuel to any other racist ideologies, and also because he doesn't want to come that fast from just a little heavypetting in the back of a taxi. "Seungri, wait—"

"Fuck waiting," Seungri scoffs, trails his lips down Seunghyun's neck and sucks so hard and loud that the driver has to turn the radio volume up to mask the sound. "I've waited long enough."

Seunghyun has, too, so he closes his eyes and enjoys the sensation and gives in a little bit more, and then he pushes Seungri with as much force as he needs to get him to detach and holds him off by relocating both hands to his other set of cheeks. "Just a little longer. The driver looks like he's about ready to kick us out."

Seungri pouts, says, "I really fucking hate you sometimes," as he bites gently at Seunghyun's palm, but he rolls off of Seunghyun's lap with a huff and holds Seunghyun's hand instead, seemingly having learned something about accruing bigger payoffs from longer delays in the years that Seunghyun hasn't seen or touched him.

After about five more decades, or something more time accurate that feels just as long, they arrive at their hotel. Seungri hands the driver a set of bills that he gingerly takes between a pinky finger and a thumb, bolsters out of the car in record speed. Seunghyun, feeling a little bit more in control of himself and a lot more grateful that the driver hadn't actually thrown them out, gives him the rest of the money in his wallet and doesn't even feel bad that he's made himself a valid case for the foundation of a new charity.

The elevator ride, for as short as it is, almost feels much worse. Seunghyun taps his feet and heaves deep breaths and tries not to burn in flames when Seungri's skin brushes his, and by the time the bell dings for their floor, Seunghyun's on him like he's in a sparring ring and fighting for life and death.

"Take this off," Seunghyun murmurs through kisses, paws at Seungri's nipples through his shirt and gets himself a groan. "Hurry—"

"I'm fucking trying," Seungri snaps, fumbling at the buttons, so Seunghyun just rips it for him. "Jesus—that shit cost me thousands of Euros—"

"You're a fucking millionaire, deal with it," Seunghyun grunts, because it'd been just a few minutes ago that Seungri wanted to fuck him without care for their surroundings, and now he's complaining about a plain white, boring shirt that he could get anywhere tenfold with his kind of earnings. "Unless you want to stop and sew them back on—"

"Oh, fuck you," Seungri snarls, before manhandling Seunghyun's own coat and shirt off of him with enough eagerness to tear a little at the stitching on the sleeves. "Payback's a bitch, isn't it?"

Seunghyun couldn't care less about the damn suit, has a dozen spare in his luggage alone, so he yanks it off the rest of the way and revels in every snip of string, because no piece of wardrobe can possibly compare to the look that Seungri gives him when he's essentially down to nothing. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Can't a guy just appreciate the view for a bit?" is Seungri's defense, sounds more like an attack, and the skim of his fingers down Seunghyun's abdomen, near reverent, is almost enough to make Seunghyun kneel in defeat. "God, you're still—how can you be this gorgeous? Even after all these years?"

"Jealous?" is all the teasing Seunghyun can dole out, because Seungri's moved his hand lower to cover over his already straining dick. "Fuck, Seungri—"

"How can I be?" Seungri mouths into his chest, sinking his teeth in before dragging down, and somehow he's the one who ends up on his knees even if Seunghyun still doesn't feel like he's winning. "I get you all to myself, now."

Seunghyun would be embarrassed, but the way Seungri unzips his slacks and takes his bare cock whole in his mouth leaves no room for humiliation as much as it does burning, guttering, mind-numbing pleasure. "Yes, fuck—shit, shit, shit, fucking  _fuck_ —"

"Quiet down up there, will you," Seungri says throatily when he pulls off, licking a branding stripe on the underside of his cock before suckling at the precome on his slit, and Seunghyun neither closes his eyes nor wills himself awake, no longer caring if it's reality or a dream.

"Come here," Seunghyun commands, and Seungri's quick to comply, but when Seunghyun shucks off his pants and leads them towards the bed, it's Seungri who mounts himself victoriously up over Seunghyun and rubs Seunghyun's cock teasingly between the cleft of his ass. "Christ—do you _want_  it to hurt?"

Seungri looks faintly amused, before kissing Seunghyun with so much tenderness that prolonged just a little longer would've made him sob. "There's lube in the drawer."

That's enough to save the tears for later. "Hopeful, were you?"

"I hoped for  _something_ ," Seungri confesses, smiling sheepishly as he reaches over to retrieve the small bottle, along with a condom. When Seunghyun just blinks at him, his mouth turns a little pursed, says, "What? I wasn't going to leave Barcelona without getting any, so it wasn't there just for you," as he unscrews the bottle cap with his teeth.

It makes Seunghyun angry just as it does hot, the thought of Seungri fucking someone else as Seunghyun stays in the same room—maybe at the same time, maybe as he watches—and he guesses he doesn't do as good a job of putting a lid on it as his acting chops usually would allow, because Seungri giggles into his shoulder as he rocks their hips together, until all Seunghyun can really feel is how badly he wants to put his cock in Seungri. "Just kidding, hyung. But I would've definitely let you watch if I did, now that I know you're not so uptight."

"You're fucking unbelievable," Seunghyun mutters, pries the bottle out of Seungri's hand and slicks up those same fingers, guides them down between them until they're aligned perfectly along Seungri's entrance. "Will you let me watch you now, then? Will you do that for hyung?"

Seunghyun pushes just the tips of Seungri's fingers in, just to prompt him to start, and Seungri stifles his moans against Seunghyun's neck as he takes over, moves of his own accord, Seunghyun leaning back to witness every digit Seungri slips in as he pumps languidly at both of their cocks. "Like this, hyung?"

It's been so long since Seungri's been this submissive, probably not since they'd formed BIGBANG—sometimes not even then, if Seunghyun really gave it a hard thought—so he relishes in every shy whimper Seungri lets out for as long as he can, even if he knows it's mostly just for show, for him; Seungri making him feel good, like he'd promised three years back, doing it for his sake, calling in all his favours. "Yeah, baby, just like that. You're doing good."

"Do you feel good?" Seungri asks, pulls his head away from his burrow in Seunghyun's collarbone, eyes half-lidded and lips over-bitten and hips sinking down onto his own fingers in sync to the speed of Seunghyun's hand, and it's so absurd a question because this is possibly the best Seunghyun's ever felt in his  _life_. "Am I doing it wrong?"

"You're doing it right," Seunghyun says, joins his own slicked finger, just the one, and watches hungrily as Seungri near undulates at being filled to the brim. "You're doing everything right, Seungri—I feel—"

"Good?" Seungri gasps out, and when Seunghyun can only nod, all the faked innocence leaves Seungri's face to make way for the most shiteating grin that Seunghyun's ever seen him don. "Good. Now it's my turn to feel good."

"As if you don't already— _shit_ ," Seunghyun hisses, because Seungri's taken his fingers out and sheathed Seunghyun's cock inside him in one smooth, fluid motion, and the tight, tight heat is all Seunghyun can focus on even as Seungri tilts his head down to recapture his lips. " _Seungri_ —"

"Yes?" Seungri hums into their next kiss, lapping his tongue over the seam of Seunghyun's parted mouth, rises up and off of Seunghyun to leave just the tip of his cock in before slamming back down hard, eyes rolling into the back of his head as Seunghyun thrusts up in answer to try and locate his sweet spot. "Oh, god—right there, Seunghyun, fuck—"

Seunghyun would utter the same blasphemy, if his own tongue hadn't melted into mush, but he soon gets to say his prayers again when Seungri begins riding him to an unpredictable rhythm that drives him absolutely insane with spirit, makes him want to speak in psalms, in whatever religion would keep Seungri engulfed around him like the clouds in heaven, the fires of hell, "I'm close, baby—"

"Wait," Seungri says, slowing down his movements until he stops moving altogether, and Seunghyun would slap him for the vengeful insolence if they were still in BIGBANG, but they're not in BIGBANG anymore; Seungri isn't Seunghyun's maknae, isn't his role to discipline him at all, so Seunghyun puts them on equal footing and chooses instead to defer to his call. "Just a little longer."

"Alright," Seunghyun accedes, and there might no longer be a BIGBANG for Seunghyun to fall back on, but Seungri's indulgent smile as Seunghyun presses his lips against his jaw will always be there to act as his support. "Okay."

When Seungri resumes his grinding, his pace is more uniform, slow, but Seunghyun likes it better, anyways, likes the progression into furlough; likes how he can kiss Seungri as he holds him steady against his cock, both hands laid firm against either side of Seungri's hips as he moves; likes the softer, quieter whimpers that Seungri generously spills out every time he hits his point of pleasure as he swallows Seunghyun whole; likes seeing the gradual drop of Seungri's eyes from stable to wrecked, pupils dark and black and precariously blown; likes feeling every shudder that consumes Seungri's body when he comes around Seunghyun, wracking Seunghyun's own release right out of him as an aching, potent warmth envelops him from head to toe.

"Is this wrong?" Seungri asks, once they've both instructed themselves to breathe, and Seunghyun looks at the blissful contentment on his face, realizes that even the worst mistakes can be erased.  _We're doing something wrong?_

 _Yeah, we are_. Seunghyun dips his head down, leans his forehead against the blank slate of Seungri's, inking in his final solution, the only answer that'll ever make sense to him. "Even if it is, then I don't want to be right."

Seungri snorts, closes his eyes, but the slant of his grin might as well be a check mark.

 

 

✈

 

 

Afterwards, there are no sides to the bed, just long lines of legs that meet and twine and intersect at an axis. When they sleep, it settles into a constant trajectory, the curve of Seungri's back transforming to match the shape of Seunghyun's.

Seunghyun doesn't dream.

 

 

✈ 

 

 

Barcelona is a starting point, but not in the way Seungri had said it would be: they don't get to go to other cities, not to Madrid or Valencia or Gijon, and they stay in Barcelona until they leave Barcelona, the rush of Seungri's fiscal deadlines urging them to go back home.

Still, it's a starting point, because it's where Seunghyun unlocks his own chains and runs down the streets holding Seungri's hand and finally permits himself to be free.

"When we go back," Seungri says to him on their last night in Barcelona, hushed out into his chest, his temple pressed over Seunghyun's heart, pulse against beating pulse. "If you change your mind and you don't think you can do this...I understand."

During BIGBANG, people liked to make lists based on the most public of their interactions, liked to label Seungri into this dichotomy of being too loved or not loved at all; one day he'd be indispensable, and the next they'd be better off without. What most people didn't understand about Seungri is that they only pushed him as far as he'd let them push; only he held the control. The fact that his is a breaking point so high that no one else in the group could ever attain—it says all that needs to be known about Seungri, the depth of the love he has to give.

After BIGBANG, Seunghyun's emptied enough space within himself to just take and take. "Stop trying to take care of your hyung. We're not in BIGBANG anymore."

It's probably not the affirmation Seungri wants, but Seunghyun knows Seungri gets it by way of the chaste kiss he leaves against Seunghyun's throat. "Sometimes I forget."

"Then let me remind you," Seunghyun says, bends his neck down so that Seungri catches his lips instead, reminds him then and reminds him now and will keep reminding him for as long as it takes for their beginnings and ends to bleed into each other in permanence.

 

 

✈

 

 

The airport is in chaos, when they land in Seoul; the fans have snuffed them out for contraband, as the best trained hounds often do.

"Oppa! Oppa!" they scream, and Seunghyun tries to think of Barcelona, of that night he'd screamed the same thing, of Seungri's face when he'd basked in the glory at the same time he'd looked straight at him. "Where did you guys go? Why didn't you post any updates on SNS?"

Seungri smiles accommodatingly, never one to jilt the fans, but his teeth are as white as the knuckles clutched around the handles of his bag. "Oppa's sorry, but me and T.O.P-hyung were on vacation, so we just wanted to relax! You guys understand that, right?"

They all nod, like the bobblehead figurines Seunghyun had bought in the image of every available Barcelona soccer player he could find, just to add to the toy collection he'd practically already disposed. Maybe in retirement, he'd thought, he'll take on the hobby again. Who knows; the possibilities are endless, now, more doors opened for him than closed.

"Of course, oppa!" they twit, and, "Did you enjoy your trip?" and, "Will you guys come out of disbandment now?" and, "Where are the other members?" and, "Why didn't you bring Jiyong-oppa with you instead?" and Seunghyun feels caged once again but this time, he won't break.

"I wanted to spend some quality time with my boyfriend," Seunghyun announces, scoops Seungri's hand up in his, locks their fingers together and throws away the key. "I haven't had the chance to in so long, since we were always so busy in BIGBANG."

That shuts them up for a solid minute. The minute's all it takes for Seungri to jump to a foregone conclusion and hunch his shoulders in on himself and try to pry his hand away, but Seunghyun doesn't move to let go.

And it's just as well he doesn't, because they break out into a choral of coos soon enough, their one last, saving grace before shit truly hits whatever proverbial fan that Seunghyun's just turned on. "That's so sweet, oppa!" "You're so funny!" "Even now, the hyung's still spoiling and bullying the maknae!"

"Hyung just loves me too much, I guess," Seungri sighs, forlorn, but his eyes are shining, grip tightening, grin foreboding; freedom within Seunghyun's grasp.

 

 

  **zZz**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic def could've done with a lot more time and thought and tlc, but alas, the constraints of life. regardless:
> 
> 1) i know nothing about any of the places i'd written about bc a broke bitch don't travel, just googles, so if any of the information i'd written sounds inaccurate, please feel free to thump me over the head with facts while simultaneously directing your blame to the corresponding city episode of travel man for giving me the inspiration (aka, travel man is gr8 and y'all should watch it)
> 
> 2) i am many things (most of them mundane and unimpressive), but what i am not is a seer, so the happenings of this fic are crapshoots irl. i don't know when bigbang will disband (nor do i want them to/think they will just bc they potentially want to fuck a member lol), i don't know if catalonia will finally be allowed independence by this time (i hope the situation's resolved peacefully), i don't know if it'd be possible for them to go on impromptu vacations and not be traced/recognized by 2021 (so just consider them very lucky here if it's not realistic), and most importantly, i don't know if cristiano ronaldo will still be playing in 2021, much less if he'll be in real madrid (jokes, he won't, but eh)
> 
> 3) i excised a short line from my other fic and put it here bc i'm uncreative lol... ~~and thought it fit better here anyway~~...so pls just 'low it for now lmao


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